XU THE FEUIT MANUAL. 



and we are met on every hand by the difficulties experienced by M. 

 Milne-Edwards, who says, " We sometimes see the transition of one 

 plan of structure to an entirely different scheme of organisation take 

 place by degrees so completely shaded one into the other that it 

 becomes very difficult to trace the line of demarcation between the 

 groups thus connected ; " and it must always be so. No classification 

 of natural objects has yet been constructed on perfectly fixed principles, 

 and if we were to wait, expecting to arrive at that state of scientific 

 accuracy, we should continue waiting. Every system now in use has 

 been crude in its beginning. The natural system of botany, for 

 instance, which is now almost universally in use, was evolved, and is 

 still being evolved, out of one which " abounded in errors and imper- 

 fections." I am not discouraged, therefore, when I meet with difficulties 

 in applying my system. I feel assured that after it has been put into 

 operation, and some of its imperfections have been discovered and 

 have disappeared, it will eventually be found to answer the purpose for 

 which it is intended ; for I am convinced that the principles upon 

 which it is founded are sound. 



The structural characters on which this classification is based are 

 1. The Stamens ; 2. The Tube ; 3. The Carpels ; and 4. The Sepals. 



When we make a longitudinal section of an Apple through the 

 centre of the eye to the stalk we see these various organs. At the top 

 of the section are the calycine segments, or what is technically called 

 the eye, and immediately below them there is a cavity called by 

 botanists the flower-tube. Inserted in this tube is a ring of small 

 bristle-like organs, which are the remains of the stamens, and these 

 occupy three different positions. In some fruits they are very near 

 the top of the tube ; in others they are lower down, and occupy a 

 position about the middle ; whilst in others they are very near the 

 base. The tube itself is of two forms the conical and the funnel- 

 shaped. Just below the tube is the core, composed generally of five 

 cells or carpels, and these assume four different forms round, ovate, 

 obovate, and elliptical ; and each of these varies in its relation to the 

 axis of the fruit, some extending close to it and forming symmetrical 

 cells, while others are distant from it and are unsymmetrical. 



These being the principal characters with which we have to deal, I 

 shall now proceed to treat of them individually. 



